Notes and News

In March the British Government announced the decision, for which FPS and all conservationists have been pressing, to ban all imports of tiger, snow leopard and clouded leopard skins, and to strengthen the regulations for the import of leopard and cheetah skins Ban on so as to ensure that only skins legally exported from the Spotted Cat country of origin are allowed in; in the case of Ethiopia, Furs Kenya, Malawi, Nepal, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda export certificates must be authenticated by the British Consul or High Commissioner. In Kenya all trade in leopard skins is now banned. (The loophole that permits made-up coats to be imported will have to be stopped up.) But in all the jubilation there has been little recognition that it was the fur trade itself that asked the Board of Trade to make the ban, in order to back up the voluntary ban agreed between the International Fur Trade Federation and IUCN/WWF in which FPS was involved two years ago. The fur trade is now pressing for similar legislation by the EEC commission in Brussels. It is also very good news that the Russian State Organisation responsible for the Soviet Union's entire trade in furs have confirmed their full support for the agreement. But it still remains to stop the demand for spotted (and striped) cat skins, for it does seem that the ban on leopards and cheetahs has shifted some of the pressure on to ocelot, margay, jaguar and other South American species which so far are banned only in the USA. The USA has put eight of these cats on its endangered species list — those above plus tiger and tiger cat — which means that all imports are prohibited.


DR. THOMAS MORONG is expected home from South America about the first of October. PROFESSOR F. LAMSON-SCRIBNER has been made Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station of Tennessee.
THE AMERICAN Forestry Association met at Quebec, September 2-5, with Hon. James A. Beaver, of Pennsylvania, as President.
DE SAUSSURE'S chemical researches on vegetation, published in 1804, has just been translated from the French into German. It seems that the English are not alone in translating old botanical works.
MR. JAMES L. BENNETT has been elected Curator of the Herbarium at Brown University. Mr. Bennett intends to take charge of ordinary herbarium specimens, but desires to get together a museum of vegetable products to illustrate economic botany. He bespeaks aid from the botanical fraternity in this regard, and would be glad to receive specimens of fruits, fibers, fabrics, etc.
MESSRS. D. C. WORCESTER and F. S. Bowmer, recently of the University of Michigan, left July 22d for the Philippine Islands, where, through the large liberality of L. F. Menage, of Minneapolis, they will spend two years in the collection of scientific material. While the principal objects they intend to secure are birds and corals, they have determined to do considerable collecting in the line of fungi, paying particular attention to the Sphariodim and Gasterom,nycetes. Mr. Worcester was instructor in botany for some time at the University of Michigan, and while there specialized upon the Myxomycetes, so results may be looked for in this line. The work on the material collected will be prosecuted at Minneapolis under the auspices of the Minnesota Academy of Sciences, in the museums of which all the collections will be deposited for the use of scientific men. GAZETTE.

THE Horticultural Department of the Cornell University Experiment Station is making a large and important collection of ctultivated plants.
Collectors are sent to leading nurseries and botanists are employed in many parts of the country to collect the cultivated plants from commercial establishments. Evervthing upon the Cornell grounds is preserved, and recently Professor L. H. Bailey has turned over to the University his whole collection of cultivated plants. Not only the species, but all cultivated varieties are preserved. This is probably the first distinct attempt of this kind in this country. THE OUTER LAYER of the endosperm of the seeds of grasses has longf been considered as a reservoir of nitrogenous substances, although several writers have suggested that it was either a conducting tissue for diastase or a ferment-producing layer. Dr. G. Haberlandt has now convinced himself by experimental researches that it can no longer be considered as belonging to the storage system, but that during the time of germination it produces and excretes diastase, belonging therefore to the glandular system. The anatomical structure of the "aleurone layer" during germination is exactly that of glandular cells. Moreover, a bit of this tissue separated from the grain and carefully washed will, if placed in contact with starch, corrode the grains and finally dissolve them, a result which was not obtained in control experiments. In order that this formation of diastase shall begin it is necessary that at least a portion of the embryo capable of growth should be present. THE MOST detailed account that has yet appeared on the process of paraffin imbedding in plants is that given by Ludwig Koch in Pringsheim's Jahrbiicher f. wiss. Botanik, xxi, 367-468. Exact directions are given for every step of the process, so that any one who can read them and do as he is told can not fail to secure good results. When, however, we come upon a detailed description of a microtome (5 pp.) we must own to surprise that such "padding" is permitted in this journal. Here is the way it begins: Der Korper des Mikrotoms besteht entweder aus vernickeltem Eisen oder aus Bronce.

THE SOCIETY for the Promotion of Agricultural Science at its meeting in Indianapolis
. . . An dem Korper des Instruments sind zwei Schlittenbahnen angebracht, u. s. w."! The last 60 pages contain an account of the various organs and tissues that the author has imbedded in this way, specifying the success, difficulties or failures with each. In spite of the extraordinary verbosity the paper will be extremely useful. The use of chloroform instead of turpentine in permeating the specimens with paraffin is recommended and we have found it economical of time.